America turned 250, and we watched the Fourth of July fireworks from the beach in Bar Harbor, a fun town on the coast of Maine. The beach was packed, boats were anchored across the harbor, and whenever the fireworks flashed, the whole beach appeared for a second, full of people.
Camping in Acadia, on the coast of Maine, the sun was starting to set just as Belgium played the USA in the 2026 World Cup. So we fired up Starlink and watched from the van. All day, friends kept texting to ask who I was rooting for. Belgium, of course. After the final whistle, the congratulations started coming in.
After hours of hiking, we reached the summit of Mount Washington, where we found a weather station, satellite dishes, and tourists who had driven up. Sharing the highest summit with people who had simply driven there felt strangely anticlimactic.
The trail down from Mount Washington is a long scramble over broken rock. The small white building below is Lakes of the Clouds Hut, tucked beneath Mount Monroe, with Mount Eisenhower and Mount Pierce in the distance.
Lakes of the Clouds Hut looked peaceful from above, but the helicopter flying beside it was evacuating a hiker who had fallen ill after a difficult climb up.
